Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 9% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 3 days young.
The moon rises in the morning and sets in the evening. It is visible toward the southwest in early evening.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is passing first ∠3° of ♒ Aquarius tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 2 days on 17 December 2066 at 00:17.
Next Full Moon is the Cold Moon of December 2066 after 12 days on 31 December 2066 at 14:41.
There is low ocean tide on this date. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at big angle, so their combined tidal force is weak.
Lunar disc appears visually 1% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1970" and ∠1950".
The Moon is 3 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 828 of Meeus index or 1781 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 59 minutes and it is 19 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2066. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to increase with the lunar orbit true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at apogee (∠180°).
The length of the current synodic month is 1 hour and 45 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 24 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠346.7° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠2.4°.
14 days since point of apogee on 5 December 2066 at 07:41 in ♋ Cancer the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 6 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 26 December 2066 at 09:01 in ♉ Taurus.
The Moon is 363 871 km (226 099 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 6 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 358 544 km (222 789 mi).
2 days after ascending node on 17 December 2066 at 07:22 in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 11 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 30 December 2066 at 17:42 in ♊ Gemini.
2 days since the last southern standstill on 16 December 2066 at 13:29 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-23.934° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 10 days to face maximum declination of ∠23.938° at the point of next northern standstill on 29 December 2066 at 18:32 in ♊ Gemini.
2 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.
In 12 days on 31 December 2066 at 14:41 in ♋ Cancer the Moon is going to be in a Full Moon geocentric opposition with the Sun and thus forming the next Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy alignment.
Parts of this Lunar Calendar are based on Planetary Ephemeris Data Courtesy of Fred Espenak, www.Astropixels.com
Moon phase image credit to NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio, svs.gsfc.nasa.gov